In the early days, your company hasn't earned the attention, so there was no “bullseye” on your back. There was no real sellable product, so there was no competition. But then the product is seeing the daylight of the market. People are noticing you, and you are starting to notice competitors you never knew existed. And the fun part begins, because if there is no competition, there is no need for what your team has built.
The more you are out there, the more people will compare you to the competition. That is human nature. How you answer is what will distinguish you as a pro. And that is when the temptation to speak negatively of those you are being compare it is just bad for you busine… [more]

For those of us in startups, opening up Twitter means seeing at least 1 or 2 funding announcements every couple hours. And the congratulations and retweets roll in, if you are any good, journalists and bloggers need a piece of you too. But the fanfare and congratulations fizzle out, and you are standing there with all that glitter and confetti on you, yet your customers don’t care. They have problems you promised you would solve yesterday. All those sales people are clogging up your phone lines trying to get at least some of your raised money just does not help.
Yes, my company, Robin Powered, closed a round of funding several months ago. I have been through angel rounds before. And som… [more]

It does not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not a stranger to getting into occasional passionate discussion. This weekend I made a statement which caused such discussion. Unfortunately, Twitter is the worst place to have a discussion. Arguments in 140 character format make people extremely susceptible to interpretation and overreaction to the meaning of individual words. Does not help that often people, who were never part of the original conversation, end up getting involved half way without understanding original context. Unlikely a constructive or valuable conversation.
So what the heck did I say?
"Apparently in Boston you are an angel investor if you wrote measl… [more]

This article has been brewing in me for a while. I credit some of the biggest wins in my career to the most diverse and smart people around me. Best decisions are made after hearing a broad range of perspectives. You can't do that in an echo-chamber of people who are exactly same as you and think like you.
As you have seen me tweet, post, and speak in public, I am just not OK with the low numbers of women we have in technical fields and in senior leadership ranks. Though there are more females than males graduating from colleges, browsing most "About" pages of startups, and especially tech companies, will still show you that white or Asian males dominate the teams. I admit my One Mighty R… [more]

For the past decade and a half, I have read countless articles on how it is impossible to build a successful company and be a good parent at the same time. I call bullshit! Yes, I know, I now owe money to the swear jar, but I’m happy to pay.
Here is the TL;DR for those of you with short attention spans - being a great parent AND running/building a company are complementary to each other. The "hustle" needed to run a successful startup multiples many fold when you have a little human depending on you to win. I had NO IDEA what focus, drive, and effectiveness were until I became a new parent. When you have a little child running at you with arms stretched out and big smile on his/her fac… [more]

The past few months have been the most eventful ones in my adult life. Most importantly, I became a father! I have been in startups my entire career, but this new "startup," my beautiful daughter Greta, has tested my planning, troubleshooting, and iterating abilities while providing me with an incredible amount of "fire", clarity, focus, and zen-like calm. So, it is probably not surprising that this huge event has also served as a strong catalyst for several other changes. I took two months off to be new dad and supportive partner (a luxury in the US) and also decided to leave Pixability for the next venture to scale.
My exciting news is that I am joining the One Mighty Roar digital exp… [more]

Admit it, it is hard finding talented people with a good attitude, who are not set in their own ways, and who are eager to improve their skills! Yes, we are already at a disadvantage since we don’t have the deep pockets of an IPOed company. But, we also tend to create several other self-inflicted major disadvantages:
Using a fishing analogy, we “trawl” instead of using our line to fish for candidates. If your recruiting team complains about too many resumes, they either need to be re-educated or fired.
We look for “Mr(s) Perfect Fit," which is just about the dumbest way to lose out on incredible talent. An unwillingness to hire people with the right foundations and mentor/t… [more]

The day-to-day execution and administration of a business often takes an excessive amount of time, so the primary reason to augment your team with an Operations Executive is to maximize your CEO's and other co-founders' contribution to the enterprise.
I firmly believe that staying true to a vision is best achieved by having a founder as CEO. It is almost always preferable over "hired guns" that can help you execute on the vision but seldom understand it as well and are often too pragmatic. That said, a management hire can be very much a champion of the vision and a true partner with the founder. Good managers are seldom unreasonable, and it takes “unreasonable people” to do the sorts o… [more]

Ever since I was a talent agent in the entertainment industry, I have been developing and continuously improving my patterns for detecting gifted people who are more talented than they know. One of my mentors used to say: "catch them before they have a chance to destroy themselves with swollen egos and visions of grander". After all of these years observing what kind of people do well and what kind end up bitter with their tails between their legs, I can bravely say that I got the pattern down pat. Yes, when I am seeking great people to join my teams, I use methods and patterns to be efficient.
So what are the methods to my madness?
1. I want to know if you have ever worked in retail o… [more]